How to Recover Gold from Chips?

There are many ways to recover gold from chips. One method is that you first crush chips, and then grind them into a fine powder. And then you can recover gold through density separation by using a shaking table.

Another method is that you can first burn chips in the open which will create some pollution though. If you want to avoid pollution you can burn chips in an oven or incinerator and use a scrubber that will neutralize the smoke during chip burning. Chips take some time to burn, so, you should make sure that they are burnt properly. Let the burnt chips cool down before proceeding further. It takes two to three hours for the burnt chips to cool down.

Now put these burnt chips into a grinder for five to ten minutes to turn them into a fine powder. You can do it manually also by using mortar and pestle. Check a sample of the ash. If it is not fine, give it little more time in the grinder. After this step, you have to separate pins from the ash. And, for this, you can use a sieve. These chips have very thin gold wires inside them. The gold wires go with the ash while separating pins from it. The pins also fetch you good amount of money. So, keep them carefully, and sell them to a metal trader when they are in good quantity.

You can treat this ash with aqua regia solution. Aqua regia is prepared by mixing one part of nitric acid and three parts of hydrochloric acid. This ash should be stirred continuously in aqua regia solution for five to six hours. Stirring the ash manually for such a long time is not possible. So, you can use a motor, a wooden or plastic shaft and plastic blades for this. Thus, all the gold will dissolve into aqua regia. Filter this aqua regia solution using a filter cloth. Recover the gold with sodium metabisulphite.

You may also visit our youtube channel:
 https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClxC7AUy3MW6OUG1rzDPjyw

Please share and like this post. Please follow my blog and oblige me with your comments if you like this article.

Wish you all the success in your endeavors & thanks for your time!